From a seat in the rear of the room, observe your students and take notes on what they are doing while the teacher is presenting in the front of the room, while they are supposed to be taking notes, doing seatwork, and/or when they are working in the lab. Look closely at each student for a range of behaviors, and resist the temptation on only see what you expect. Note especially what is happening furthest from the teacher.What strategies are used by your CT to encourage students to attend and engage? Watch carefully how your CT moves around the room. Draw a map of the classroom and sketch a path showing (approximately) this movement.How important is student engagement to your view of how you will teach? What strategies will you employ to encourage student engagement?Please post your observations and reflections using these links
My CT’s room is set up in a unique way. There are 6 tables, each of which fits four students. Three are in the front row of the room and the other three are more towards the back of the room. The tables in the middle (of both rows) are straight while those on the sides are angled towards the center of the room. As class begins I take a seat in the middle of the back of the room to make my observations. In this class my CT is lecturing and the students are showing a variety of behaviors.
Some of the students are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, paying attention and taking notes. Others are staring at the teacher but not taking notes and it is clear that while they are looking attentive their minds are probably a million miles away. One girls working on an art project, a drawing of the celebrity Beyonce. Two girls complain in hushed voices about how time consuming applying to college is and how their teachers do not seem to understand this and keep assigning more and more work.
The next class, which is a small class of students who are behind on their reading, writing, and math skills, is called team lab. The students are working on learning scientific word parts and using them to determine the meaning of words they would not otherwise know. They are working in groups / pairs and as my CT walks among the groups I observe the ones he is nowhere near. One pair, a guy and a girl, fight about a mutual friend the guy appears to have a crush on. The argument ends with the male student breaking the female’s pencil at which point my CT moves them to separate tables. Two boys actually finish their work quickly and then talk quietly while the teacher helps the other groups. A final group of three boys do their work when the teacher is close by but the second he moves on to another group they talk.
From my observations I can see that when a teacher is far away, most students will take advantage. In the higher level class my CT only had to gently remind them to get back to work and they did so without question or argument. The other class, of younger students, was not like this at all. If my CT asked them to get to work, they did, but only until he was out of earshot again.
For the group work my CT did a sort of rotation around the room, stopping at all the groups many times throughout the period, for short amount of times each time. I think this was a good strategy because the students knew that he would be back in just a few minutes and that they better have some more work done by the time he got back to them. If the CT had only went by each group one or two times but stayed there for a longer period of time, the group he was at would have been working but the others would have been talking the entire time he was gone. By making many quick rotations my CT kept the students on task as much as possible. While lecturing, my CT always moves around the room, both to the front and to the back and side to side. He moves among the desks and never stays in one spot for too long. I think that this is a good strategy because it lets him keep an eye on all the students as well as helping keep them engaged.
I think that student engagement is both very important and very hard. It is important because no matter what you are teaching your students they are not going to learn any of it if they are not engaged in the lesson. However, keeping students engaged is hard because they like to talk to their friends and daydream. In order to keep my students engaged I will be as energetic, entertaining, and enthusiastic as possible. Any student will tell you that the worst teachers are the monotone, boring ones. Even for a college student it is hard to learn from a teacher like that. Therefore, I will be enthusiastic to keep my students engaged. In addition I could also have them participate either from their seats or get them up and moving, which would keep them engaged as well.
From these observations I learned that no matter what not every student is going to be engaged in every lesson. No matter how good the teacher is, high school students will always have something else they would rather be doing or talking about. However, teachers can improve student engagement by being enthusiastic, getting them involved, and making sure that they are keeping an eye on every student, especially those in the back of the room.
My CT’s room is set up in a unique way. There are 6 tables, each of which fits four students. Three are in the front row of the room and the other three are more towards the back of the room. The tables in the middle (of both rows) are straight while those on the sides are angled towards the center of the room. As class begins I take a seat in the middle of the back of the room to make my observations. In this class my CT is lecturing and the students are showing a variety of behaviors.
Some of the students are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, paying attention and taking notes. Others are staring at the teacher but not taking notes and it is clear that while they are looking attentive their minds are probably a million miles away. One girls working on an art project, a drawing of the celebrity Beyonce. Two girls complain in hushed voices about how time consuming applying to college is and how their teachers do not seem to understand this and keep assigning more and more work.
The next class, which is a small class of students who are behind on their reading, writing, and math skills, is called team lab. The students are working on learning scientific word parts and using them to determine the meaning of words they would not otherwise know. They are working in groups / pairs and as my CT walks among the groups I observe the ones he is nowhere near. One pair, a guy and a girl, fight about a mutual friend the guy appears to have a crush on. The argument ends with the male student breaking the female’s pencil at which point my CT moves them to separate tables. Two boys actually finish their work quickly and then talk quietly while the teacher helps the other groups. A final group of three boys do their work when the teacher is close by but the second he moves on to another group they talk.
From my observations I can see that when a teacher is far away, most students will take advantage. In the higher level class my CT only had to gently remind them to get back to work and they did so without question or argument. The other class, of younger students, was not like this at all. If my CT asked them to get to work, they did, but only until he was out of earshot again.
For the group work my CT did a sort of rotation around the room, stopping at all the groups many times throughout the period, for short amount of times each time. I think this was a good strategy because the students knew that he would be back in just a few minutes and that they better have some more work done by the time he got back to them. If the CT had only went by each group one or two times but stayed there for a longer period of time, the group he was at would have been working but the others would have been talking the entire time he was gone. By making many quick rotations my CT kept the students on task as much as possible. While lecturing, my CT always moves around the room, both to the front and to the back and side to side. He moves among the desks and never stays in one spot for too long. I think that this is a good strategy because it lets him keep an eye on all the students as well as helping keep them engaged.
I think that student engagement is both very important and very hard. It is important because no matter what you are teaching your students they are not going to learn any of it if they are not engaged in the lesson. However, keeping students engaged is hard because they like to talk to their friends and daydream. In order to keep my students engaged I will be as energetic, entertaining, and enthusiastic as possible. Any student will tell you that the worst teachers are the monotone, boring ones. Even for a college student it is hard to learn from a teacher like that. Therefore, I will be enthusiastic to keep my students engaged. In addition I could also have them participate either from their seats or get them up and moving, which would keep them engaged as well.
From these observations I learned that no matter what not every student is going to be engaged in every lesson. No matter how good the teacher is, high school students will always have something else they would rather be doing or talking about. However, teachers can improve student engagement by being enthusiastic, getting them involved, and making sure that they are keeping an eye on every student, especially those in the back of the room.
Kerry K